The book brand
Libraries are the book place. Why is that bad? asks Walt Crawford in the latest C&I (’ware PDF):
The “brand” of libraries and the extent to which libraries are thought of as places where books reside. I have to wonder why this is regarded as something to be overcome rather than as a great basis to build on. Ask most public library users what they want most from libraries and the answer is usually “books.” What’s wrong with starting from a basis of “the place where you can borrow books for free”?
Well, I’ll tell you what I think may be wrong. The next time somebody does a brand survey of this sort, I want followup questions (and all the appropriate statistical correlations) interrogating the importance of books in the respondents’ lives. If books are important, and the library is where the books are, then libraries are indeed golden. If books aren’t so much these days, and libraries are just where the books are… we’re waving buggy whips around and we’d better stop it.
And it’s not enough just to ask “how important are books to you?” because we all know that the socially-acceptable answer to that is “I wuv books!” Books are for use, said Ranganathan, and folks who aren’t using books may cheerlead for a book brand, but they won’t shell out tax dollars for it. I want to know when the respondent last checked out a book. Bought a book. Read a book. Went to a library. I want to see rubber hitting road. Er, ink hitting page. Whatever.
Then (at the risk of making a terribly lengthy survey) I want to see this correlated with use of other media. Sorted by demographic groups, even. Age, at the very least.
I think the picture that emerges might be sobering, to public librarians in particular. I think we might well find out that much of the “up with books!” crowd we’re so happy to point to doesn’t actually use books much, and we’re unlikely to change that. I could be wrong, and I’d be happy to be wrong. But the sense I get from the people I disrespectfully call “book-smellers” is that they’re far more in love with the idea of books and libraries than the actuality of them. We need to find out. Until we know, I wouldn’t stand pat on the book brand.